There is more good going around this world then credit. I creep around the Internet and I observe. I've been reading blogs written by people I know and people I don't and today they have added up to a good feeling in me. I've been listening to music that I don't really know, all for free on lala.com, and then I get side tracked and I want to go back and listen to some music that I remember from a time in my life that I may have forgotten and it all floods back. I remember listening to music on a stereo that I bought with money from the sale of my second bucket calf. I purchased the cd/tape player at walmart with money from an animal that I fed every cold morning with a bottle. It never occurred to me that I should cherish the animal more than the stereo. Yet I cried when one day in a fit of rage directed at my brother I slammed a stick down on my bed and cracked the remote to the stereo in half, and not a tear the day I sent the calf off to be slaughtered. I was just happy to have the money and have the chore over with. It's sort of amazing that I learned to appreciate anything isn't it?
So I used to listen to music on a stereo that I bought with the life of animal that I fed with a bottle. Now I listen to it for free on the Internet while I'm being paid to do some tasks in an office.
And there are all these good things going on in spite of how odd it seems when you just look at a little part of it. That's why people don't give the entire life experience enough credit. If you look at a little slice of anything you can make it suck, or if you expect it to be something that it just isn't then it can suck. Just staying alive is enough.
A friend of mine didn't manage to get through last week. So not staying alive is enough too. "We all pay for life with death. So everything in between should be free." Bill Hicks said that, and he's dead so he should know.
Another friend of mine cut his arm, pretty badly. Severed, collapsed artery bad. He hasn't been sure he will get to keep it. It seems to be getting better now and there is blood flowing in his hand again. Life is a series of consequences.
There is a lot that happens.
I'm listening to Catherine Wheel's album Chrome now. It reminds me of a car and a closet. I have so many memories that tie music to cars. Cars crash and the music still plays.
I laid a car to rest last night. I was certain that this car would leave me stranded in the middle of the 5 freeway at some point. That consequence never occurred. Instead I watched a fork lift take it away.
I am a lucky bastard. I woke up today to a nice sensation, a special electricity flowing through me. Happy firing neurons in my brain. And here it is, I am deeply effected at times by material possession. I am not so evolved as to be past the fleeting feeling of completeness that comes from the acquisition of new things. I am in many ways still a child in soul and mind and in the way I choose to interact with society at large. I have not really settled down and I have actively pursued the desires and lifestyle of youth. As a result of this I have not achieved much success in the financial realm, and I have not reaped the benefits of high pay. I have been driving a car that could be described kindly as a "shit box". It is a 1995 Saturn with 130,000 hard Los Angeles miles on it. The transmission is going and the clock is ticking. I entered the 5 freeway for my short morning commute everyday with the closest thing I get to prayer; in my mind I recognized the possibility that this journey could be the journey where the car finally refused to go any further. In honor of possibility I would always drive the Saturn in the two right lanes, in the hopes that I might have enough momentum to safely pull to the shoulder of the freeway, and not find myself stuck in the fast lane with a target on my bumper. I have great fucking parents. Sorry for swearing folks but I need to stress it, and that's how I perform that task. I wasn't born into a perfect family. My parents and my siblings and I had a lot to learn about loving and forgiving and letting go. I don't know what my parents thought of their ability to raise children when I was young. They knew enough to know that they had further to go, and that there was always a better way to be. Looking back now I see the progression. My parents worked hard to be better parents constantly and thoroughly. Therapy and continued education and a focused attention to mine and my siblings needs. To run a farm and work a job and raise three active children while driving 40 miles one way to get their masters degrees. These are not people that ever chose the easy way. These are adults that accepted the responsibility that they chose when they decided to commit to raising children. It is because I have the parents that I do that I recognize that even though I'm 31 I am still very much a child. I have chosen to be this way and I recognize that it is a gift from my parents that I am able enjoy this choice. I have noticed some changes in myself. I have started to accept more responsibility. I now share my life with Angela, who didn't have the luxury I did growing up of such a stable home life. Angela is much more of an adult than I am, because she had to be. She budgets and she correlates her actions with their consequences. She has faced the world with out a safety net and she has gained much practical wisdom from that. I have been learning from her. I have learned to make many different choices. I not nearly as reckless now as I have been. I can see self destructive behaviors better now and I often choose to avoid them in order to be a stable partner for her. I can see how my parents grew into the people they are, by caring about some one else so deeply that you constantly want to choose what best benefits them. I get it. I have diverted from what I assumed this post would be about. I was having shallow thoughts and they have now run a bit deep. I really was just planning to tell you about the vehicle which my parents bought for me. And to express the feeling I get that I'm 31 and my parents still buy me a car. It is a funny sort of feeling, but I'm thankful for it. My parents gave my brother their old car. I was happy for him. He gave me his old car, which he had managed to keep running with good responsible care. He is actually now the guy I go to for advice on how to take care of a car, because he kept the shitbox running when no one else believed it could be done, and he did it by taking very good care of it and taking the time to do regular maintenance. Like before it broke down he would take it to the shop. This idea had before now been unknown to me. My parents felt bad about that they didn't have two cars to give away, because I ribbed them about it, because I'm still a bit of a child. They felt so bad about it that they finally forced me to let them help me by myself a new used car. And when I say "help" I mean they paid for it. So I ended up buying a Ford Explorer from the company I work for. It was purchased new for my boss Craig to drive in 1998. He drove it for 10 years and then bought himself a new vehicle. It's basically been parked for the last 2 years and driven maybe once a month. So for a 1998 it has low miles and it's in excellent condition. Have a look:
So I woke up today and I was excited and happy that I had a new car to drive to work. I can actually listen to music in my car instead of playing the harmonica. Which gets a little old after about 20 minutes. The stereo is half of the fun of a car. I woke up with the before mentioned electricity and I recognized it's source as being material and a bit shallow, but it is not phony, it's electric. I swam in my shallow waters to the closet and I picked out a cute shirt and a cute pairs jeans and a cute hat, which I later changed for a different cute hat, since apparently my first hat was not cute with my first outfit. I felt good and I looked in the mirror. I acknowledged my reflection, and we shared a moment.
I carried with me to my car a fashionable looking umbrella, a book and a yogurt/granola snack which Angela had prepared for me. I felt like someone I would like to meet. I walked to my new vehicle and got in.
This next section has a sound track. For your convenience I have embedded it.
I start my Explorer and this song comes on in my cd player. Press start now.
I am smiling. I turn right on Garden and then right again on Edenhurst. I accelerate up Edenhurst and I am enjoying the V6 engine. I realize with some level of guilt that there are serious consequences to driving big vehicles. I say to myself you are American and you can't help it that you enjoy these things. I decide for the moment to let that go. I am thinking about my parents buying me a car. I have the beginnings of the thoughts I wrote about above. The song is building. I am feeling good. I think about my state of prolonged childhood. I think about the fact that I have the same dreams for my life that I had when I was in high school. I also realize that in many ways I have attained those dreams. I am what I wanted to be, I have chosen this life. I realize that I have grown, I have new dreams in addition to the old ones. I have started to see more of my father in myself. I have started to dream about being a father. I have caught myself in the way I speak to Angela, speaking as my father would to my mother and it feels good, it fits. I can see that I am growing up, I'm just not there yet; I am so thankful that I don't yet have to.
The freeway felt good. Some days it feels dirty, and I feel as though I'm driving through the ruins of what was wrong with the American dream. Today though I feel the power of possession and the ingenuity it took to build the freeways and the vehicles which pound it with their tires.
